Lest you auteurs out there get too exciting, thinking you're going to film your Michael Bay ripoff dream project for a song, keep in mind that the entire cast and crew *volunteered* on the project (some for years). If you were to factor that cost in, it wouldn't surprise me if the actual cost of this project was well north of $1 million.

I just wanted to mention that, because these kinds of fan films often advertise incredibly low budgets that mislead a lot of people to think that real filmmaking is easy and cheap, and anyone can do it. It reality it takes a team of pros to produce a decent effort (not just some shitty student film or Youtube novelty). It's just that very low-budget efforts often get those pros to *donate* their services. They're not going to do that for your average Michael Bay ripoff.

My personal favorite professional-grade fan film is Broken Allegiance [wikipedia.org], easily the best Star Wars fan film ever made (IMHO). It was shot in Australia with a volunteer cast and crew made up of film professionals for about $10,000. It's one of the few fan films I've seen with professional lighting, actors who aren't horrific, and a halfway decent script. And it's one of the few Star Wars fan films that plays it straight instead of doing the 10-millionth stupid parody of a franchise that's almost become a parody of *itself*.

Discworld plays, board games, video games (yes, Discworld I and II were NOT "Discworld", just Simon-the-Sorceror style cash-ins), etc. 99% of the Discworld merchandise is absolute tat. Hell, even the endless calendars, "science books", and everything else are a waste of space.

I don't blame Pratchett and/or his agent for cashing in - far from it, I'd do the same. But it remains true that every adaptation outside of the books just can't do them justice.

Hell, I cringed through the first 10 minutes of the TV adaptations we had over in the UK "starring" David Jason, etc. Ick. I had to switch it off.

Some series you can do justice too (whether they have or not is another matter) - Lord of The Rings you can do quite well (though I don't like the current versions, there's sure to be a remake in 10 years time with even more "extra footage"), most sci-fi authors you can do quite well. But comedy literature is a tough one to crack and it won't translate to the screen properly at all.

All it *will* do is put people off trying to read the books because they've seen the (crappy) TV/movie versions.

In one book, Death has a scythe that's so sharp it slices his sentences in half when he speaks. Vimes is an ugly, fat, old alcoholic copper that kicks arse (okay, they NEARLY managed that in a lot of 80's cop shows). Unseen University is technically invisible (or not, depending on which part of which book you read). There are pages of explanations spread across 20+ books about how some of the elements of the world came about (e.g. klacks, other dimensions, Angua, Dibbler, etc.). How the hell do you translate that to a movie or even a play?

They should stop trying. At best you can attempt an amateur play or an audiobook reading. At worst, everything else you put out ruins the books even more.

Different books give the reader different levels of "imagining" - the Harry Potter series, to pick an example that's similar to Pratchett in setting if not writing, doesn't give you a lot of leeway in imagining the settings and characters, it's firmly placed in our world with a few standard fantasy additions.

Pratchett, on the other hand, allows much more free reign for the imagination. I've not found any of the TV mini-series to match the images running through my head, it all seems a lot more cartoon-l

I just wanted to mention that, because these kinds of fan films often advertise incredibly low budgets that mislead a lot of people to think that real filmmaking is easy and cheap, and anyone can do it. It reality it takes a team of pros to produce a decent effort (not just some shitty student film or Youtube novelty). It's just that very low-budget efforts often get those pros to *donate* their services. They're not going to do that for your average Michael Bay ripoff.

So basically, spending less money on a movie means they'll be less like Michael Bay movies?Even if this were a $2 million movie, the quality seems to be on par with something atleast 10x more expensive.And all we need to do is replace special effects with story and hollywood stars with actors.

Yes, the same as Star Wreck (which I whould have named "Start Wreck"). Still, it would have taken Hollywood fifty million to film. BTW, that's one of my favorite movies and I can't wait to see the Pratchett film, if it's as funny as Pratchett's books it will be even better than Star Wreck.

incredibly low budgets that mislead a lot of people to think that real filmmaking is easy and cheap, and anyone can do it.

Sure they find it satisfying enough to keep doing it. That's why most of them do it professionally. The point is that these volunteer projects don't scale well. It's easy (at least if you are active in the film community) to scare up a free pro crew for a weekend project. With a little work and an interesting idea you can get a dedicated group for a few weekends, or convince people to take a week off work.

But that only works because they have real full time jobs doing this. You can't say 'hey that went grea

Yes, they need a day job, enough to survive comfortably but you also don't need to pay them millions either. People are basically willing to do it for free as long as they can survive. It just goes into a nice circle movie makes lots of money, people want their cut, movie cost more to make so has to make more, people want bigger cut, continue until movie makes as much as it can (that's a lot), justify amount of money made based on high costs. When reality a large portion costs are a result of the high amou

I said surviving comfortably (in the first sentence), not having to worry where the next meal is coming from, or you have a place to sleep tomorrow, not being on the brink of survival. Sure everyone wants more but that is not necessary for creativity it may even be counter-productive there have been studies that show this.

I see where you're coming from but it doesn't change the fact that the budget is $82,000. Yes, plenty of people are donating time and resources and yes, not everyone can produce a similar film for that money, but regardless of how, they are producing this film on a $82,000 budget. That's very impressive.

No, he has a good point. The actual budget is far in excess of $82,000. $82,000 is just how much liquid cash they spent. The opportunity cost of the entire film is, as he stated, somewhere around $1 million or something.

Consider this. What if the people who volunteered their time instead just donated money?

If those people gave $1 million, which was then spent to hire other people to do what those people volunteered to do, the end result would be the exact same.
You'd have $82,000 left over to spend on the set, etc, having spent that $1 million dollars on acting, labor, etc.
Would the cost of THAT film be $82,000? No, it cost $1,082,000.

So because this money was donated, you're not counting it?
Or because the volunteers immideately "spent" the money on themselves, it doesn't count?
Its economics.

No, the budget is $82,000. They have a budget of $82,000 to spend on resources, regardless of the typical value of resources they are actually able to get their hands on.

If I wanted to produce a widget and set aside a budget of $82,000 to do a manufacturing run, that figure does not change if through various deals and favours I am able to get a factory to give me free, or very preferential rates, for whatever reason. Other widget manufacturers may still be paying the going rate of $1,000,000 to do the same

I forgot to add, if people had donated $1,000,000 instead of their free time, then that would indeed give me a budget of $1,082,000. But that's not what people did so I have a $82,000 budget and the bonus that many of the resources I need are available for free, for whatever reason.

Not everything can be reduced to a dollar figure. Maybe the actors had a really good time producing the movie, maybe they saw it not so much as donating their time, but using their time for leisure. I know if someone gave me the choice of giving them $some money or going with them and having a good time, I wouldn't consider the two options equivalent at all.

Does that mean that every movie that reuses props needs it's budget revised? How about shooting on location in a city, does that need to be counted as how much a similar set would cost? Do 3Dfications have a budged in excess of the originals as their conversion budget clearly doesn't cover making the movie?

I'm a tv producer. When producing a short, feature, tv series, etc. and you're looking for money you need to have very clear your budget. Maybe you can count with donations like this project, but any contribution should count as part of the budget.

It's very common when you're producing that your investors and partners don't want to pay for the whole development or pre-production, they think the same as you do that some work doesn't has a cost. But everything has a cost, from the original story (are they pay

As it is, the trailer was remarkably uneven. The single shots of Cohen were well lit, well-composed, color-corrected, well-focused, etc. (Well, most of them were.) Not the greatest stuff in the world, but it looked like an actual cinematographer was at work.

The battle scenes, by contrast, looked like a student film. Shots were ill-composed, focus was automatic, color balance was set to "whatever". Clearly it was shot on a nice camera, but you have to know how to use a good tool to get good results.

What, have you never seen Star Wars Revelations [panicstruckpro.com]? The actors in it weren't "horrific" at all, far from it, and neither was the script amateurish. And it's not a parody, which is the ONLY reason it never made it into Lucas' stupid official contest and won.

I've seen both (and have copies), and I think Revelations is the better production. It may have been less fannish than Broken Allegiance; the way it's still promoted seems like they wanted to use it as a vehicle to take them places, whereas I wonder if I could even find an online copy of Broken Allegiance now. How much of a difference in budgets existed I have no idea.

Outside of possibly being an excellent learning experience for the people involved - will anything non-farcical come out of this?

I don't mean ridiculous in that the Cohen/Discworld story is a parody, there's nothing wrong with that, but the production values of the trailer seem totally amateurish - as if you'd given panavision or Red cameras to a bunch of teenagers who'd rather be doing something else.

Why do you have to be a professional film maker to make something that isn't ridiculous? I know two different film makers who aren't "professionals" who make films with excellent production values for virtually nothing. One makes short comedies and the other makes many variations of film.

If you watch the trailers you'll see good locations, costuming, and decent editing. You'll also see ridiculous acting and, apparently, ridiculous direction.

Should all fan fiction be NYT Bestseller List worthy?All fan art worthy of the Louvre, instead of something that looks like it belongs on my fridge?I cringe to think of what you say about your kid's macaroni art family portrait.....

So why do amatuers making a fan film have to display a professional hollywood level of expertise?

The whole point is its a labor of love from people who love the topic, regardless of their expertise. It had meaning to them, as well as to (hopefully) other fans who can also appreci

Building yourself a strawman here? LOL. I didn't say it need be 'oscar worthy', I simply asked if anyone else thought the trailers were amateurish to the point of being ridiculous. If don't agree, great, but stop trying to make it sound like I'm disappointed it's not 'Avatar' in chainmail.

All fan art worthy of the Louvre, instead of something that looks like it belongs on my fridge?I cringe to think of what you say about your kid's macaroni art family portrait.....

Sanctimonious much?:)

So why do amatuers making a fan film have to display a professional hollywood level of expertise?

Again, the only person making this stipulation is you. I, as is clear to someone less hotheaded and looking to argue as yourself, simply found the trailers to be shockingly amateurish.

I do actually, and I know that is is INCREDIBLY hard work. That being said, it is certainly achievable.

$82,000 is a lot more money than many films are ever made with and I don't recall seeing too many that were laughably bad like the trailers were.

Making a decent film is tough, making a decent trailer is much easier. If the trailer(s) are hokey, the movie is going to be an order of magnitude worse. As Clint likes to say - "A man's got to know his limitations..."